Australian premier Howard: HIV-positive immigrants should not be allowed in country

Last updated at 15:19 13 April 2007

Australian Prime Minister John Howard said people with the AIDS virus should not be allowed to migrate to Australia, and the government was investigating whether it could tighten existing restrictions.

The comments triggered anger among AIDS workers, who accused Howard of xenophobia and of blaming sufferers for their illness.

Asked in a radio interview whether people with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, should be allowed into Australia as migrants or refugees, Howard said he would like to take "more counsel" on the issue, but added, "My initial reaction is no".

However, he said there may be "humanitarian considerations" in certain cases.

"I think we should have the most stringent possible conditions in relation to that nationwide, and I know the health minister is concerned about that and is examining ways of tightening things up," Howard said.

Howard was asked about the issue during a visit to Melbourne, the capital of Victoria state, where the state health minister said this week that 70 of the 334 new HIV infection cases reported in Victoria in 2006 were among immigrants who had arrived in the country with the virus.

Australia has long had restrictions on people who try to immigrate who have health problems that could threaten to spread disease or impose an additional burden on the public health system.

Don Baxter of the nongovernment group the Australian Federation of AIDS Organizations said HIV tests were already among health checks for prospective immigrants, and most HIV-positive applicants were rejected.

Dr. Chris Lemoh, an infectious disease specialist who is working on a doctorate on the spread of AIDS among African immigrants in Victoria, said excluding people with HIV should be condemned.

"It's a hysterical overreaction, it mixes racism with a phobia about infectious disease," he said.

"To not allow people to come on the basis of any health condition is immoral, it's unethical and it's impractical to enforce."

Many countries, including the U.S., impose restrictions on immigration and visa approvals for people with HIV, though there are often exceptions in special cases.

AIDS was first diagnosed in Australia in the early 1980s and the disease has mostly been concentrated in large cities such as Sydney, and in high-risk groups such as homosexual men and needle-sharing drug addicts.

The National Center for HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research said in an October 2006 report that since it was first detected, 25,703

infections had been reported in Australia, of which 9,827 people developed full-blown AIDS and 6,621 had died.